


Care

by bravest_person_in_Wonderland



Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, And they get them!, Davey has glasses, Davey is amazing tbh, Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm back at it with the super weak endings whoops, Race also has anxiety btw, Whump, and also anxiety, and probably of the passive voice as well, dubious knowledge of medical practice, gratuitous abuse of commas, hurt jack kelly, i just googled "manhattan hospitals" and used the first one to pop up, i only know how to write like 3 types of sentences but goshdarnit i make good use of them, in which the author has zero knowledge of the layout of NYC, the sibling vibes are strong in this one bc I miss my older siblings, what a guy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:47:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28794894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravest_person_in_Wonderland/pseuds/bravest_person_in_Wonderland
Summary: A phone call awakens Davey Jacobs at an ungodly hour of the night.featuring fluff and mild whump :D
Relationships: Crutchie & Katherine Plumber Pulitzer, David Jacobs & Jack Kelly, David Jacobs & Katherine Plumber Pulitzer, Everybody & Medda Larkin, Jack Kelly/Katherine Plumber Pulitzer, Racetrack Higgins & David Jacobs
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16





	Care

**Author's Note:**

> it's 💫𝓪𝓾𝓽𝓱𝓸𝓻 𝓹𝓻𝓸𝓳𝓮𝓬𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷 𝓽𝓲𝓶𝓮💫, lads. Davey got my crappy eyesight and anxiety, Katherine got my habit of explaining things as if they've been rehearsed in my head (bc they have lol, whoops social anxiety time), and Race got my anxiety/ADHD habits. and once again because I write most things at 1am, it's set in the middle of the night... I'm hopeless but hey- for a dreamer, night's the only time of day. ;) 
> 
> I literally just used all the typical fanon modern AU stuff, like with Jack and Race and Crutchie being adopted brothers and everything, so yeah. (Remembering to refer to Crutchie as "Charlie" was quite a task lol)
> 
> also it's worth mentioning that while I mostly base my fics off the Newsies Live cast, this time I was thinking of Zachary Sayle as Crutchie instead of AKB for some reason. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

It was the middle of the night when Davey's phone rang, jolting him out of sleep as he instinctively grabbed for where it was charging next to his bed. Luckily, Les was a heavy sleeper and the noise hardly caused him to stir. Davey slipped out into the hall before answering the phone, not checking the number because first of all he didn't have his glasses on, and second of all, nobody but friends would call him at this ridiculous hour. He didn't even know what hour it was, actually, but it was ridiculous.

"Hello?" He said, slowly and quietly walking into the main room of the apartment.

"This is New York Presbyterian Hospital. Is this David Jacobs speaking?"

Instantly, Davey was 100% more awake. "Yes," he said quickly. "Why?"

A thousand frightful possibilities whirled through his mind in the space of one-point-five seconds it took for the soft male voice on the other end of the line to respond, all centering on one thing: someone was hurt. He didn't know who, because half his friends probably had made him their emergency contact at this point -- he was known as "the responsible one" -- and that only served to twist the sudden knife of anxiety deeper into his diaphragm.

"You're listed as an emergency contact for one Jack Francis Kelly," the voice said, and Davey felt his eyes widening the dark.

And crap, now his eyes were itching like they always did when he tried to open them while not wearing his glasses. Danged blurry vision. He rubbed at them with the heel of his free hand, partly in an attempt to calm his worry.

"Is Jack okay?" He asked, honestly kind of stupidly. If the hospital was calling him then Jack was probably _not_ fine in any way, or else he'd be the one calling.

"Mr. Kelly-" Even with the anxiety coursing through him, Davey managed to find it amusing to hear Jack referred to as _Mr. Kelly._ "-Is currently in surgery." Another jolt of icy stabbing fear. "It would probably be best for you to come to the hospital as soon as possible."

Davey swallowed hard. "Okay," he said, then added, "Thank you," before ending the call.

He heard a noise from the hall and turned to see Sarah, appearing rather blurry at the moment, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest. She didn't look very _awake._

"'S going on?" She mumbled sleepily.

Davey walked up and put an arm around her shoulders, leading her back to her room. "I have to go somewhere," he said. "I'll leave a note for mom and dad so they don't freak out." Their parents were decidedly not good texters.

"M'kay, be safe." She leaned into the half-hug before pulling away, then closed her door again.

Davey crept back into his and Les' room and grabbed his glasses off his bedside table, carefully stepping where he knew the apartment's floor wouldn't creak as he put on actual clothes. Jeans and a sweatshirt pulled over his pajama top would do, and he grabbed his shoes from the closet before leaving the room again. He scribbled a note explaining where he was going on a scrap of paper and left it on the counter where his parents would see it when they woke up.

It was eerie being up at this time of night. Or rather, this time of _morning,_ he realized when he got into his car and finally looked at the clock. It was nearly half two as he pulled out of the building's parking area and onto the road. The drive was brief, thank goodness, and Davey walked into the waiting room fully intending to go speak to whoever was behind the reception desk. A waving hand caught his attention, though, and more important was the familiar face of the person it was attached to.

Katherine Plumber lived up to the title of "hot mess," hair falling out of what had probably previously been a fashionable bun. She was standing as Davey approached, and as soon as he was within range she threw her arms around him in a tight hug. He hugged back, slightly confused seeing as they had been in Psych 102 together the day before.

"I can't believe I didn't think to call you," she said before finally stepping back. "I just-" she cut off, waving a hand vaguely and erratically, and sat down in one of the waiting room chairs. "Oh boy."

"What happened?" Davey asked, sitting down across from her and trying to ignore the worry that kept coming in waves.

Kath sighed. "We were studying late," she explained. "Neither of us realized _how_ late it was because we kind of got... distracted."

Davey didn't want to know what _distracted_ meant, but something must have shown on his face, because Kath backtracked.

"Nothing- ooey-gooey," she said with a giggle that came across as slightly manic. Considering where they were, Davey didn't blame her. "We started talking about politics-" Here she screwed up her face in amused disgust, "-And anarchism in classic literature."

"Okay," Davey responded, at this point unsurprised.

Jack had chosen an English minor to go along with the bachelor's program he was enrolled in to get him on the way to becoming a social worker. It was a lot of work, especially after adding that English course, but it was obvious that it was worth it to him. After growing up in the foster system, passed around various families before landing in a group home where he had met his now-brothers, it was no wonder that Jack wanted to get into that line of work. He had finally been adopted, but it had been a long, painful journey, and it was clear that he hoped to make life easier for other kids in those kinds of situations.

The English minor was a bit of a surprise, though, but Charlie and Antonio -- Jack's adopted brothers -- claimed that he'd always loved to read, so Davey simply accepted it. The way Jack could get fired up about the tiniest details in a book was endearing, too, and Katherine agreed.

"Anyway," she continued, "We were still on campus so when we realized how late it was we decided to walk back over to the dorms, but, um-" she broke off again, her face filling with tension. "I don't really know how it happened, I think he was walking a little bit ahead of me? I stopped to try and find something in my purse but Jack went to cross the street, and-"

"Oh."

"...Yeah." She looked down at her hands, folded in her lap.

Davey stood up and moved to sit next to her. He didn’t dare ask how bad it was. "Did you call-"

"Miss Medda? Yeah, at least I did that." Kath forced a specter of a smile onto her lips. "She's on her way over with the boys."

Jack's adoptive mother and two brothers lived on the far side of town, which was the main reason that Jack had opted to stay in the college's student housing. The commute wasn't too terribly long, but for a sleep-deprived college student also working a part-time job at an art gallery, it was just enough to be unsustainable.

Katherine leaned toward Davey, their shoulders touching so slightly that he thought it might be an accident until she spoke again.

"Not to make this worse for you," she said softly, "But, I... um, I just am really worried. I mean, I have no idea what I'm talking about but from what I saw, he... didn't look good."

Davey took a slow breath to combat the tension below his ribs. It wasn't like he hadn't rehearsed situations just like this in his head before, always trying to mentally prepare himself for whatever worst-case scenarios came to mind. It was sort of dumb, but it was the way his mind worked. He never actually expected any of it to happen, though. And Jack... oh, god.

He didn't let himself get any further down that thought path, because he knew if he did then his mind would spiral too far and he wouldn't be any help for Kath or Miss Medda or the boys when they got there. The one thing that echoed in his mind for the next five minutes, though, was the thought that he didn't know if he could survive losing Jack. It was probably unhealthy to feel that way, but it was true.

Somehow, despite not even liking one another when they had first met, Jack Kelly had come to mean the world to Davey. They had a strange bond that Davey didn't think either of them really understood, but he also didn't think they _needed_ to understand it. It was just there, tying them together like an invisible string. For either of them, losing the other would be like having a limb ripped off.

Davey blinked hard. Hadn't he literally just told himself he wasn't getting on that train of thought? So much for self-preservation. Trying to distance himself from brooding, he slipped an arm around Katherine's shoulders in an echo of how he'd done with Sarah earlier.

"It'll be okay," he said, and it was partly a prayer.

They both sat up straighter when Medda and the boys walked in a minute later, then stood because Medda was nothing if not a hugger, especially in stressful situations. And Davey was no detective, but it didn't take one to notice the way Antonio -- who went by "Race" most of the time -- silently moved closer to his side, while Charlie gravitated to Kath.

He and Katherine were, along with Jack, the unofficially designated "parents" of their friend group. It wasn’t unusual for the others to come to them for help or even comfort, at times. Davey felt an internal shift when the boys arrived, a slight lessening of his anxiety probably caused by having someone else to worry about. Katherine seemed to feel the same, pulling Charlie close to her side as they sat down again and he set his crutch on the ground.

Kath gave Medda the same explanation she'd given to Davey as she absently stroked Charlie's arm with a thumb. Medda pursed her lips, her brow knitting, and went to try and talk to a doctor. That left Davey and Kath with the boys, who seemed almost eerily subdued.

Race pulled a ballpoint pen from his pocket and started fiddling with it, ending up with the thing hanging out of his mouth, like a cigar or something, only without the risk of cancer. He didn't offer any of his usual snarky comments, because of worry or because of how freaking early it was, Davey didn't know. What he did know was that it was slightly disconcerting for Race to be this quiet and relatively still. He didn't realize that Race was holding his hand -- or he was holding Race's, he didn't know -- until the other boy gave a small squeeze. Davey looked over at him, meeting big, frightened blue eyes.

"What if-"

"Don't you dare," said both Davey and Charlie at the same time, probably for different reasons.

Davey knew the futility of asking _what if,_ the fact being that it only served to accelerate that downward spiral of fear. He got the impression, however, that Charlie had cut Race off out of more fear than anything else, not wanting to think that way either.

"He's still in surgery," Medda said, returning. She sat down on Charlie's other side with a deep sigh.

* * *

When a prim-looking doctor finally came over nearly thirty minutes later, Davey thought the scene looked a bit like something out of a Hallmark movie, but more chaotic. His and Kath's shoulders were still pressed together, Katherine and Medda with Charlie cozied between them. The fact that these chairs lacked armrests was a certifiable blessing. Race was somehow half-asleep and nearly in Davey's lap, having at some point shifted to cuddle against him. Davey had forgotten how tactile Race could be, but he didn't mind. His cheek was pressed against the top of Race's head as the doctor approached, and with the way his arms were around the younger boy, he could feel him tense as she began to speak.

"Jack's condition is stable," she said. "But you need to understand, he was badly injured. He has several fractured and broken ribs, along with the internal bleeding we had to patch up, a concussion, and a broken leg."

"Can we see him?" Charlie asked before anyone else could, and the doctor glanced over their group with a slight frown.

"Family only."

"They are family," Medda told her, her tone brooking no argument. The doctor apparently accepted that, which made Davey like her much more. She gestured for them to follow her down a long hallway, and they did, with Katherine and Charlie whispering back and forth the whole way. The doctor showed them to one of the many monotonous white rooms and left them to register what they were seeing.

Jack laid limply on the hospital bed, his face pale and bruised, and bandages covering at least fifty percent of his skin that was visible. A cast encased his left leg, and the way he was connected to the various monitors and the IV drip was extremely disconcerting.

Davey had never realized what a big difference there was between being asleep and being unconscious, but here was a veritable case study in it right here before his eyes. He had seen Jack asleep before -- he had a habit of falling asleep in incredibly random places at incredibly random times, which was occasionally inconvenient but mostly just endearing. This was different, this was... scary. Even knowing that Jack would be alright, another shiver of worry struck Davey, this time accentuated with a twisting in his heart that at this point he was intimately familiar with.

Sarah called it _"mother hen mode,"_ and Jack called it _"softness,"_ but really it was just _care._ Davey sometimes thought he cared too much, that he carried all this tenderness with no outlet, no way to use it. But tonight, or rather this morning, in a slightly cramped hospital room with four other people not including the unconscious one lying on the bed, he felt like his so-called softness had a good use.

There were only two chairs in the room. Charlie took one and sat by Jack's side, gently holding his hand. Medda and Kath stared each other down for a few seconds as if in the middle of some kind of telepathic conversation, before Medda accepted the second chair and sat at the other side of the bed. Kath stood at her shoulder for a while, watching Jack's chest rise and fall. Race took a seat on the bottom corner of the bed, careful not to jostle Jack, and Davey shrugged and exchanged a look with Katherine, then simply sat down on the ground nearby.

At some point in the wee hours of the morning, Davey drifted to sleep.

* * *

A soft, steady beeping greeted Jack when he regained consciousness, quickly followed by a buttload of soreness. He bit back a groan and forced his eyes open. He was met with a soft smile from Medda, who reached out to gently touch his face.

"Hey, honey," she greeted. "How you feeling?"

He made a face in reply, not really wanting to try and talk. Going off how sore and thrashed he felt, his voice would probably be all weak and croaky. He felt a slight movement at his feet and glanced over, finally registering Race's lanky form sitting there, a pen hanging from his teeth and blue eyes widening in a grin when they met Jack's. Race didn’t say anything, just put a finger to his lips and pointed first to Charlie, curled in another chair on Jack's other side -- the source of the pressure he felt softly squeezing his hand, he realized sluggishly -- then to something on the ground that at first just seemed like a blobbish mass, but as Jack's consciousness caught up he realized was two people.

Katherine's hair had all but completely fallen out of its earlier bun, and she was clearly exhausted considering the way she was sleeping on the hard floor with only her jacket and Davey's legs under her head. A few strands of reddish-brown hair covered her face and moved each time she breathed. Davey, for his part, was leaned up against the side of the bed, his forehead pressed against Race's knee, with the hood of his sweatshirt up and a few dark curls peeking out from under it. Both of them looked a little less peaceful than they normally did when asleep, which Jack figured was probably his fault. He shifted his slightly-blurry gaze -- geez, he must've had a concussion or something -- back to Medda, who smiled again as he weakly blinked up at her.

"It's about five in the morning, hon," she murmured. "And you've had quite a night. You get some more rest, we'll all be right here when you wake up again."

Jack didn't have the strength or desire to argue, and his eyes drifted shut again within seconds. The last thought on his mind before sleep took over was of how nice it was to feel loved.

**Author's Note:**

> so, this happened bc I made an offhand comment on an incorrect quotes thing on Pinterest that I would try to write a fic based on the idea of Davey being Jack's emergency contact. this is... definitely not what I originally intended it to be, tbh, and I may actually do a rewrite/alternate version of it and play around with my original idea? but I really liked this as I was writing it, so here we are. 
> 
> this is my first real modern AU (I don't count the DW one as that bc the show is set partly in modern times anyway) so if you have feedback or thoughts please let me know! I hope y'all enjoy this. :)
> 
> ~~I almost titled this "Duty Of Care" bc I'm TwelveClara trash but I restrained myself cos it didn't feel right with the story~~


End file.
